In Conversation with Rob Lucci
by pollyglyph
Summary: Kaku has a one sided conversation with an unconscious Lucci.


**_Notes: _**_Set d__uring the events of the CP9 Independent Report. Kaku has a lot to get out of his system._

* * *

_Kaku enters the private hospital room and closes the door behind him. Kalifa sits by Lucci's bedside and looks up at him from her novel. _

Kalifa: "A little early for your watch."

Kaku: "Better early than late. If it'd been the latter I'd have a mouthful of stiletto greeting me this side of the door."

Kalifa: "Quite true."

_She closes her book over._

Kalifa: "You didn't bring anything to do?"

Kaku: "Gee, didn't even think to."

Kalifa: "You'll find the hours long going in then. He won't wake up any time soon."

Kaku: "Maybe never if I heard right…"

Kalifa: "So they say. But those doctors have never met the stubborn bastard before. Anyway, I'll let you start then."

Kaku: "Unlike you to leave so early."

Kalifa: "Unlike you to arrive so early. Next time, stick to my schedule. I put a lot of work into that."

_Kalifa leaves the room, and Kaku sits down in the chair._

Kaku: "Hi Lucci. Well, gosh, it's kind of awkward talking to you when you're out like a light like this, isn't it? Don't know why I feel so compelled to, maybe it's the nerves you know? When I get nervous I start to blabber something fierce. Sometimes it'd make you so mad."

_"'Shut the hell up Kaku or I'll make you.' _Geez, don't know why I'm laughing at that, it's not funny at all. Nothing about you, or us, was ever funny."

_Kaku looks at his watch._

Kaku: "Kalifa wasn't kidding. Time seems to go very slowly in here."

"What's it like in coma land? Time still as a frozen lake for you too? Or are you waist deep in some thrilling new mission and getting your hands dirty?"

"I wonder if you can hear me or whether this is just as useless as talking to a brick wall."

"Speaking of walls, I imagine a lot of people say that about you. That you put walls around yourself. I think I know you a heck of a lot better than that though. You don't have walls around you. You're the wall itself. That's the vibe I get. Like if someone tore that wall down, maybe there wouldn't even be a Rob Lucci left. That's just what I think though. I've pondered on that metaphor, and its relation to you before."

"It's easier to talk to you when you can't talk back. Dumb, I know. But you look uncharacteristically peaceful with your eyes closed over. Those awfully piercing eyes are the hardest thing to have to deal with. With those out of the picture, this is actually quite smooth sailing."

"At first, I thought you must've been using conqueror's haki when I first met those eyes. That's how intimidating they were. But what a chump I was, that's just the natural power of your eyes. It was always just your own sharp, menacing eyes. Not an extra power, nothing that was gruellingly trained or learnt either. Maybe that's how they've always been. Cold enough to freeze hell over."

"Nobody even has an inkling what goes on behind those eyes. A riddle behind an enigma. And I guess now maybe no one ever will, will they? Even if you did wake up one of these days, you'd probably shut down even further. When you wake up, you're going to have to live with that deep, overwhelming shame of defeat."

"What does it feel like to finally get taken down? The great Rob Lucci, finally bested in battle. That rubber boy didn't even give you the mercy of killing you like you'd have done to him."

"At first, I admit, I laughed. I laughed long and hard. Jabura thought I'd finally flipped. Even thought it to myself after a while cause I just couldn't stop. I mean, it was full on side-splitting. Finally, you'd been dethroned. Stripped of all that hoity-toity dignity and that battle prestige you carried as your badge of honour. _Rob_ _Lucci was defeated_. Boy, did I get a kick out of that announcement, I tell you."

"Course, I was lying there half dead myself awaiting the end, so maybe I just needed one last little kick before I kicked the bucket. Just so happened by coincidence that the last joke was on you. I sort of felt I could die a little easier after that, knowing you'd been taken down a couple pegs."

"Yet, hey ho, here I am now. Still kicking and walking again too, a couple feet deep in shame myself though, mind. Defeated by an opponent who thought death would be too much of a kindness. We're almost in the same boat. Almost. I'm a little bit more conscious than you though, so I'd say the scales are tipped in my favour right now. You always hated anyone having the upper hand. But I loved holding it over you so much, the rare moment I could."

"But I have to say, this isn't as satisfying as I'd pictured."

"Now and then, I thought about what I'd do come my turn to watch over your bedside. I thought to myself, w_hy not just pull the plug on him? _Save us all from constant fear and the looming shadow of death you held over all our heads. Always seemed like death was just a slight wrong turn of phrase, or itty-bitty slip up on a mission away when you were there, with those searing eyes."

"It would be easy. It would probably be painless for you. And it would give us our freedom."

"We could find new lives, and leave that all behind us."

"Perhaps running a sword through your chest would be a more fitting end to the tale. Almost poetic, right? An assassin assassinated by his fellow assassin just looking to get out of the whole assassination malarkey. I even have a small sword stashed on me. I still haven't quite talked myself out of it yet."

"Convince me, Rob Lucci, it's worth keeping you alive."

_He studies Lucci's face._

Kaku: "Of course you can't. You're powerless. Absolutely downright vulnerable in ways right now you've never been."

"And why is this the moment that finally shakes me?"

"Why does it chill me to the bone more than any mission or any time I've felt your hands grip my throat?"

"The violence has stopped fazing me. But this truly shocks me."

_There is a tap on the window. Hatori knocks at it with his beak and Kaku gets up and opens it for him. He sits back down._

Kaku: "What in blazes does the bird mean? It's a real head-scratcher. Why do you care about him? I thought you hadn't a bone in you that cared. The only darn thing close to a logical conclusion I can reach is that there's something inside the cold shell of Rob Lucci that does in fact still have that capacity. But maybe he's lost the ability to even recognise it in himself?"

"Was there ever a Rob Lucci that hadn't turned his back on all the joys that there are in this world? Cause there are joys you know. Plenty of precious things. Wonderful things. They were in Water Seven too, right under your nose. Of course, in a line of work like this it's not exactly hard to forget there are good things in life. But you dismiss them all off-hand or are completely blinkered to them."

"What unmentionable things have been done to you to make you so unaware of them? Or made you fear you can't or won't even enjoy them so you don't even try?"

"You can't even let anyone else around you have them or seek them for themselves either."

"You know what you are, Lucci? Not a wall. A black hole!"

_Tears start to well up in Kaku's eyes. Hatori lands on Kaku's shoulder and Kaku brushes him off. _

Kaku: "Don't try to console me!"

"You know, he gives me the heebie-jeebies a little bit sometimes that bird. It's almost like you really do have some wacky symbiotic relationship with him. Perhaps he's the soul that you cast away, personified into, of all things, a peaceful white dove. What an irony eh? If I wasn't crying, I'd be laughing."

"Gee, I really have lost it, haven't I? Talking to your near-dead body, spinning convoluted yarns about your lost soul trapped in the body of your pigeon."

"But seriously. Promise me that when you wake up you'll give me the low-down on Hatori, ok? What's the pigeon all about really? It's driving me up the wall trying to solve this doozy of a mystery."

"You won't though."

"What will you be like when you wake up I wonder? I've considered this too. Way I see it, there's two options. One, you'll wake up on the right side of the bed and be a whole new Lucci. A calm, zen-like Lucci who has seen the error of his ways and intends to make right his wrongs. You apologise. Oh gosh, yes I know. It's almost too far-fetched. What am I saying, it's next to impossible and that's a dead cert. But part of me holds on to hope. That all this hard work we're doing, raising this money for your hospital bill won't be in vain. You'll fold at our kindness. Ha ha. Yeah right, Kaku, pull the other one."

"The second option is, drum-roll… of course, you got it. You get up on the wrong side of the bed. A hellish Rob Lucci even worse than the last. Even more twisted by bitter defeat. Oh how I fear option number two. Never in my wildest nightmares could I imagine living with a Rob Lucci even worse than the one we'd all found near insufferable already."

"Hmm, though a leopard can't change its spots can it? So mystery door number three, you wake up and it's back to the status quo all over again. No better, no worse. I guess I could deal with it, though obviously if I ran the show it'd be option number one I'd pick and you can take that to the bank."

"Will it mean anything to you what we're doing for you?"

"The kids here seem to like animals so we thought entertaining them in our Zoan forms would be a good way to earn a few berries for you. But golly, that's got to be one of the daftest things to put on a résumé, don't you think? Street performing giraffe. Imagine explaining that one at an interview. Good grief!"

"We've had our moments you and me. Now and then, there were times I almost might have mistaken you for a human and not a monster. Sometimes the sex was nifty enough too, though it's a good thing I don't mind a rough hand. Ha, rough hand. As if that's all it was. You're twisted. And sometimes I do honestly hate you. I'm not just saying it to get you off. Why you get off to that I haven't a notion. You're supposed to be a sadist, not a masochist remember?"

"I decided this a long time ago. And I also decided a long time ago never to spill the beans. But I'll tell you now. So I hope you're actually listening Lucci."

"One day I will see you smile. For real. Not like your lofty derision smirk or your murder grin. A proper smile from the heart from something honest to goodness nice. Real emotions nice. From a kind, stand-up gesture that finally melts your frozen heart. Sometimes I think I almost catch you slipping the mask. Usually it's when you're with that pigeon of course. When you feed him or talk to him, there's something that almost approaches tenderness in those moments."

"One day, I will break you, Rob Lucci. You will smile. You will care. You will love."

"It doesn't even have to be me. Though sometimes I think that might be kind of neat maybe…"

_Kaku glances at his watch again. _

Kaku: "Still moving slow as a glacier. I thought that'd be the time down the drain by now."

"You're so peaceful."

"I didn't think you could look like this. It suits you. You'd hate to hear that so much though. You'd run for the hills from _'peaceful'_, wouldn't you? No, you'd probably murder peaceful."

"When you look like this, I'm almost not afraid of you at all. Yes, I admit. I'm terrified of you. Always have been, maybe always will be. But of course, that same fear plays a key roll in the thrill of it all."

"Hmm, don't know what to talk to you about now, kind of tired all my talk out. You'd be telling me to shut up by now anyway. No, that would have been the minute I started talking, no doubt."

"Maybe I'll just take forty winks until Kumadori gets here for your next watch."

"If I wasn't too scared to touch you right now I'd get up on that bed and lie beside you. Part of me is real worried though you're actually just asleep and it'd wake you and then we'd have to go back to living with you again. But I know the way you look when you sleep and boy, it sure ain't tranquil and calm like this."

"Anything you want to say to _me_ while you have the hot second to get some things off your chest?"

"What was that? I can't hear you, speak up."

"Ha, I'm just playing."

_Kaku sighs and gets up. He puts a hand on Lucci's face. _

Kaku: "Maybe, like you said, I've a weakness for nice things. But sometimes nice looking things have cruel hearts as a cruel twist of fate. A real waste of a nice face. Why don't you wake up and just try being nice for once? You might even like it."

_The door opens and Kaku jumps. _

Kumadori: "So the leaves have fallen leaving the trees naked as now autumn draws to a close for the man known as Rob Lucci. Bless his soul as he departs for the cold, dark depths of the long winter."

Kaku: "He isn't dead yet."

Kumadori: "No, but a stone's throw."

Kaku: "We got him the treatment."

Kumadori: "Despite man's best attempts to overcome the laws of nature, death comes to us all when it means to."

Kaku: "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish it were Jabura that just moseyed on in through this door. You're way too morbid."

Kumadori: "Death is divine beauty Kaku. A flurry of red petals strewn on white snow."

Kaku: "Sometimes I'm surprised that man even has blood rather than ice flowing through his veins. Anyway, if you're here early, I'll skedaddle. I think I've had as much Lucci as I can handle for tonight."

Kumadori: "Tenderly do lovers part ways as the sun sets for one, yet hangs on in still sadness for the other."

Kaku: "Shut up already. For better or for worse Lucci will pull through. This is Lucci after all."

Kumadori: "Such faith inspires. So be it. I shall pray tonight for his life to be spared though I might have hoped he would provide sweet company for my dear departed mother."

_Kumadori begins his chant around Lucci's hospital bed and Kaku quickly leaves the room and heads back to the hostel CP9 are staying at. _


End file.
